On Monday, Montreal agreed to a one-year, $925,000 deal with Czech d-man Jakub Jeranek.
Jeranek, 25, spent last season with HC Vityaz and starred as a quality offensive blueliner, with 34 points in 59 games. He’s been tied to Montreal for quite some time, and it’ll be interesting to see how his skills translate to the NHL -- and into a team that has five defenseman under contract for next season (Shea Weber, Jeff Petry, Alexei Emelin, Brandon Davidson and Jordie Benn).
Nathan Beaulieu and Nikita Nesterov are both RFAs, while veteran Andrei Markov goes unrestricted on July 1.
In other Habs news, the club has reportedly passed on gifted KHL scorer Vadim Shipachyov.
Shipachyov, 30, had 76 points in 50 games this year. Habs were interested in him last year, but a clause in his contract kept him in KHL.
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) May 1, 2017
Shipachyov was never drafted by an NHL club, and has never played in North America. But he has emerged as one of the KHL’s most dynamic offensive producers over the last few years and, given the success the Canadiens had with signing Alex Radulov out of Russia this season, there were rumblings they’d be interested going down that road again.
Shipachyov is currently with Team Russia for the upcoming World Hockey Championships in France and Germany. Last year, he led the tournament in scoring with six goals and 18 points in 10 games.